Uh, if you actually beat it... you realize that he kills his future self, so a version of himself dies in the end but the original Booker, the one you play as does in fact survive.

Uh, I did "actually beat it". He doesn't kill himself, Elizabeth kills him. She kills Booker BEFORE he makes the choice to either become Comstock or walk away from the baptism, thereby becoming Booker.

No i'm talking about the epilogue after the credits.

Yes, and so am I. All it shows after the credits is whoever, doesn't say who, alive in Booker's room opening the door to the baby's room. A lot of assumptions need to be made if you want to say that is definitely Booker.

I will try to explain why it isn't Booker we see after the end credits.

The Booker in Bioshock Infinite is born of choosing NOT to take the baptism. He becomes a very bitter and angry individual who racks up so many gambling debts that he ends up choosing to give away his baby in order to settle them.

So, we have three different versions of the same person, depending on their historical choices.

1. Comstock who chooses baptism.
2. Booker who rejects baptism.
3. A man I will call A who never even gets the choice of baptism at all. This man chooses to save his daughter Anna by never having the choice presented to him; by allowing Elizabeth to kill him.

Three different men: A, B and C.

The person we see after the credits is not in fact the Booker we have known. That Booker can now never exist as he never gets to make the choice to reject baptism, that made him Booker.

He is instead A, someone who might still be called Booker, as the sign on his door suggests, but is NOT the Booker we have met in Collumbia. It is a completely new person. Someone who was never offered the choice to become Comstock or Booker.

We don't know if this person A still has his daughter Anna, as we never see inside the crib. We know that she can't grow up to be Elizabeth, because there can never be a Comstock who chose baptism.

Just want to add that I don't think it's any accident that it's C for Comstock, B for Booker and A for Anna's father (she will remain Anna in that universe and never be Elizabeth).

Choices A, B and C.

Sadly the booker we know and played as during the game dies at the end. Another booker that we don't know, but is still 'a' booker, is alive at the end of the credits. Presumably this is a reality without any baptism choices and only the other constants. Like the battle of wounded knee, then wife then child birth death, then depression debt and alcohol, then walk into Annas room one day…
An interesting note is he uses his left hand to open the door and thus not showing us if he has ‘AD’ on his hand. Not that he would have it but they didn’t show it to leave it ‘open’ perhaps.

Originally posted by Virgin|Arsenal:

Uh, if you actually beat it... you realize that he kills his future self, so a version of himself dies in the end but the original Booker, the one you play as does in fact survive.

Assuming we interpret the ending as such: ‘The booker we know is killed by three different Elizabeth’s (None of which is the one we played the game with [Cry Face]) and thus creates a ‘paradox’ that effectively erases all (or at least the two that were entwined) timelines including and after the ‘baptism choice’ (Booker accepts and becomes Comstock, or rejects and looses Anna to Comstock) so they both no longer exist in any multiverse reality or ‘tear’.

Simplified: Before Booker can make a choice he is drowned and thus everything after no longer exists and didn’t nor will ever happen in any timeline that follows.

Then I respectfully disagree. ‘The’ Booker we played as does not get reverted back in any way because like Argy said our booker chose no to the baptism and thus because the choice is erased from time so is he before he made the choice (because he drowned).

What I don’t understand is “How”. How is Comstock eased from time by three different muliverse Liz’s killing “our” Booker that we played as. Would it not make more sense for them to kill the past Booker, the one before a choice is made while present Booker (Player Character) stood and watched with our own Elizabeth next to us? Why did she not come with us through the tear anyway? What the fiddle sticks, I thought she was burning to kill commy?

Can two people be combined into one and have both memories of their present and memories of the future? If you jump through a tear to the past, present or future would there not be two of you like Booker and Comstock? How then can our future Booker jump into the past [thanks Liz :’( ] and be past booker in order to have himself killed before a choice is made?

Let’s say that due to Elizabeth’s new god like powers she can make Booker re-live the past as his future self as we are actually shown something like this at the end as she takes us through different scenes from our past. If we can re-live our past can we not change our past like they did by killing him? Instead can he not refuse the baptism? He said in the final scene (not exactly but more or less) ‘I refused.’ and the Elizabeth’s said ‘But in other’s you did not.’ Then how does killing him stop him from making a choice if our booker has already made his choice?

Would it not make even more sense to go back in time and kill Comstock as he accepted the baptism and not as he refused? This would still erase ‘our’ Booker from time because of a paradox. A side note I personally don’t believe in paradoxs only more creations of multiverses, that is if time travel and multiverse travel are even possible.

All I can conclude is that irrational games did this to make a more dramatic ending by having the player drowned in first person and thus a bigger emotional impact.

I still don’t understand the how of it but I understand that our booker died and is dead which makes me a very depressed panda. I just wanted to take Liz to Paris, was that too much to ask for?

There really is no possible right or wrong interpretation that someone can have since once you inject the notion of infinite universes and the ability to go back into past timelines, it's a free-for-all.

I see the epilogue as a sort of cliffhanger. Through the Lutece "twins", we know that they have tried this with many many Booker's in their tally of the heads or tails decision near the beginning. So my interpretation of the epilogue is that their decision not to show whether Anna is still in her crib is one where you have to make up your own mind if the drowning of "Game Booker" had any impact at all and undid anything or will be just another tally mark for the Lutece's. If you're a pessimist, it was all just futile and Anna is not in the crib, indicating that the loop is still ongoing with Comstock's and stolen Anna's. If you're an optimist, Anna is in the crib and all the "variable" timelines of Booker and Anna are consolidated into a "constant" where Anna is never taken and is always with Booker whenever it's possible in that timeline.

My version is that the drowning worked, and that in the epilogue Anna IS in the crib and epilogue Booker IS our Booker, just not in the sense Argy and Eagle see it as. Just because he did not go through the baptism or experience the events of the game does not disqualify him as being the same Booker to me. It can still be the same Booker, just at an earlier stage of the timeline where the interference of Comstock is now erased. Of course that's not to say that it couldn't be a different Booker from a different universe. I just think it's the same because his office is the same, the crib is the same, so it is the same Booker. Having not gone through the events of the game doesn't make him different in my eyes.

Did this make sense?

@faustyle

Yes that makes sense and I would like to agree with your second statement except for one thing. Was not the Elizabeth’s goal to kill past Booker from the same timeline before a choice could be made which would separate them into two different people and timelines? If they succeed then Comstock is stopped at the cost of killing our Booker. If they fail then our Booker died for nothing and his past along with Comstock's is unaffected.

We are defined by our choices. If you chose option B over C then that is what makes you who you are. The reason it can't be our Booker is because our Booker chose to refuse which is a choice and that choice defines who he is and isn't. If the drowning was 'successful' in changing his past he didn't get to make that choice so he can not be alive at the end credits.

However if you define 'our' Booker as the same person that decided not to go to the baptism then you could say it is 'our' Booker but I just don't see how as 'our' booker made a choice like Comstock. (He would be from a different multiverse because of a different choice hence not 'ours')

An alturnative answer is that we died for nothing (hurray for happy endings again) and we change nothing by our death. Then after the credits shows a scene from the past of our timeline to show the cycle is not broken.

(I respect your opinition faustyle but I must question everything for the sake of the discussion.)

He can definitely still refuse the baptism. If the drowning worked, then the threat of Comstock is gone and now there is no reason or option for Elizabeth to drown you before the Baptism because Elizabeth doesn't even exist. Only Anna does. So Booker can refuse the Baptism and just still be stuck with debt and drinking but still have Anna.

Or are we dealing with the semantics of what allows us to call Booker "our" Booker? He will never go to Columbia and make all those choices we made as gamers if the drowning worked, but that to me doesn't mean he isn't our Booker. Let's say you always get a cheeseburger for lunch at Maccers or whatever you guys call McDonalds. But one day, you go with your friends to eat Chinese. Are you a different person now because you didnt get to pick a cheeseburger, even though you'd make the same decision if it was presented to you?

Just remember the Lutece's. "He DOESN'T row." They don't ask Booker to help row because they know he won't. It doesnt make him a different Booker if they asked him and he refused.

Edit: In fact, didn't Booker refuse the Baptism before he had Anna? He went to be baptised right after Wounded Knee, not after he had Anna or else Comstock would never have needed to kidnap Anna at all. The Booker in the epilogue already refused the baptism.

The way I see it is we have one timeline which forks into two at the choice of Booker or Comstock at the baptism which is indeed before anything else and right after Wounded Knee. If we succeed in stopping Option C by having ourselves killed before either B or C can be chosen then neither can be chosen so he can’t become Comstock or the Booker that we know. Both timelines that would be are erased from time because he is now dead in both timelines at the baptism.

As for the ‘our’ Booker I say he isn’t our booker because our Booker chose refuse and because of my above statement this can’t be our Booker. (Your McDonalds example is the same person because he is from the same timeline.)

However if we believe that the baptism is a scene where only option C is stopped by killing our Booker, that is the baptism is only option C and does not affect option B then it would mean that our Booker has chosen option B safely in a different timeline already and can continue his life without interference from Comstock and the end credits scene makes sense.
(I don’t think this is the case, you both live or both die from the original baptism scene I believe.)

I think I understand what you’re saying though. You’re saying that because we both died (B & C), Comstock can’t steal Anna so it is our Booker that refused and is living on without interference. This would only be true if option B was unaffected by having ourselves killed but option C ends in death.

Yeah, your last part is what I mean. I can see how it can be a little paradoxical but it makes sense to me.